How to print out Tree Structure?

How do I print out a tree structure?

• I'm trying to improve performance in our app. I've got performance information in the form of a tree of calls, with the following node class: public class Node { public string Name; // method name public decimal Time; // time spent in method public List<Node> Children; } I want to print out the tree such that I can see lines between the nodes - something like in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1581559/ascii-library-for-creating-pretty-directory-trees. What's an algorithm I can use in C# for doing that? Edit: Obviously I need to use recursion - but my attempts keep putting the lines in the wrong places. What I'm asking for is a specific algorithm that will print the tree in a nice manner - the details of when to print a vertical line and when to print a horizontal one. Edit: It isn't sufficient just to use copies of a string to indent the nodes. I'm not looking for A |-B |-|-C |-|-D |-|-|-E |-F |-|-G it has to be A +-B | +-C | +-D | +-E +-F +-G or anything similar, so long as the tree structure is visible. Notice that C and D are indented differently to G - I can't just use a repeated string to indent the nodes.

• Answer:

  The trick is to pass a string as the indent and to treat the last child specially: class Node { public void PrintPretty(string indent, bool last) { Console.Write(indent); if (last) { Console.Write("\\-"); indent += " "; } else { Console.Write("|-"); indent += "| "; } Console.WriteLine(Name); for (int i = 0; i < Children.Count; i++) Children[i].PrintPretty(indent, i == Children.Count - 1); } } If called like this: root.PrintPretty("", true); will output in this style: \-root \-child |-child \-child |-child |-child \-child |-child |-child | |-child | \-child | |-child | |-child | |-child | \-child | \-child | \-child \-child |-child |-child |-child | \-child \-child \-child